Wednesday, 25 October 2017

THE DUKES OF RICHMOND, LENNOX AND GORDON WERE THE GREATEST LANDOWNERS IN BANFFSHIRE, WITH 159,925 ACRES

This noble family deduces its origin from

SIR ADAM DE GORDON, knight, of Huntly, who was slain in 1402, and was succeeded in his estates by his only daughter, Elizabeth, who married

ALEXANDER SETON, second son of Sir William Seton, of Seton, upon which occasion that gentleman assumed the name of GORDON, and was created, in 1449-50, Earl of Huntly, in which title he was succeeded by the eldest son of his third marriage, with Elizabeth, daughter of William, Lord Crichton,

GEORGE, who wedded Princess Annabella, daughter of JAMES I of Scotland, and was succeeded by his eldest son,

Other titles: Duke of Richmond (1675), Duke of Lennox (1675), Earl of March (1675), Earl of Darnley (1675), Earl of Kinrara, in the county of Inverness (1876), Baron of Settrington, in the county of York (1675) and Lord of Torboulton (1675)

GORDON CASTLE, near Fochabers, Morayshire, was originally built in the 1470s and is the spiritual home of the House of Gordon.

Enlarged in the 1770s as his principle residence by Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon who, until his succession to the dukedom in 1827, was 7th Marquess of Huntly, it became one of the largest houses ever built in Scotland.

The 5th Duke who, like his father before him, was known as the "Cock o’ the North", died without legitimate male issue in 1836 and Gordon Castle, the Scottish Estates, and eventually the dukedom passed to his nephew, the Duke of Richmond.

Meanwhile, the marquessate of Huntly (traditionally the name of the eldest son of the Duke of Gordon) passed to His Grace's distant cousin, the then Earl of Aboyne.

During the Great War the Castle, like the fictional Downton Abbey, was used as an auxiliary hospital for the wounded soldiers returning from the front.

The 9th Duke sold Gordon Castle and his Scottish estates in 1938 as a result of penal death duties following the deaths of his father and grandfather in 1935 and 1928 respectively.

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